Local Needs or Corporate Greed?
By Mexico Solidarity Network

Plan Puebla Panama has been touted as the development centerpiece of Mexican President Vicente Foxs administration. According to plan supporters, PPP would bring development to Southern Mexico and Central America by opening the region to foreign corporate investment. In the most general terms, PPP consists of an elaborate plan of hundreds of projects and investments throughout the American isthmus. But whats the deal? Whats this all about?

WHERE IS IT GOING TO BE? The American Isthmus, the narrowest part of the Americas, includes nine southern Mexican states (Puebla, Veracruz, Oaxaca, Chiapas, Guerrero, Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatn and Quintana Roo) and seven Central American countries (Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panam). This area is characterized by the quantity and diversity of its natural resources (iron, titanium, petroleum, high quality soil, water, etc.) and its high level of biodiversity, representing 10% of the worlds flora in a relatively small land mass. Moreover, this area occupies an important geo-strategic position, linking North and South America, and connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Its position is key for a strategic commercial route, linking 21st century commodity production in Pacific Rim with markets in eastern North America and Europe.

WHAT WOULD PLAN PUEBLA PANAMA LOOK LIKE? PPP would transform the region into a transportation corridor and processing center for commodities that are produced in South America and the Pacific Rim, and consumed in North America and Western Europe in other words, development for corporate interests, not local needs. In order to become the intestines of this complex global corporate system, PPP would develop a complex set of infrastructures in the American Isthmus: Construction of a wide-ranging system linking the different parts of the isthmus through highways, deep-water ports, airports and railways. This would result in massive displacement for the local (largely indigenous) populations. Implementation of a new energy network for the transport of electricity, gas and petroleum, allowing exploitation of the regions energy resources and raw materials (uranium, minerals, water, etc.). The exploitation of these resources is for export and foreign commerce, thus benefiting primarily large multinational companies. Installation of a government-subsidized system of maquiladoras for export production. Their main purpose is the final assembly of consumer products using imported commodities from the Pacific Rim. The conditions in these sweatshops would likely duplicate the horrible conditions in the north of Mexico Sales of dumping grounds for industrial waste, large dams, and industrial-scale plantations (eucalyptus, African palm, shrimp farms and more). None of these products would be for local consumption.

SO WHO BENEFITS AND WHO LOSES? PPP is presented officially as a plan for economic development and integration. In reality, PPP would create a strategic economic zone for the globalized capitalist system. It represents a giant step in the process of expanding NAFTA to the rest of the hemisphere by solidifying conditions for the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas in Central America. The plan tries to satisfy the commercial, industrial, and infrastructure needs of corporate-centered globalization.

Winners: Multi-national corporations would be the primary beneficiaries of PPP, which is based on the production-for-export model. Corporations would have easy access to abundant natural resources and cheap labor, with no trade restrictions, low taxes, and no environmental standards. International Financial Institutions like the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund will provide the start-up capital.

Losers: PPP would produce sweatshops and environmental disaster. Small farmers and indigenous communities will face lower prices for their crops and displacement from traditional lands, forcing them to join the industrial workforce and search for jobs in maquiladoras or migrate to the cities or the US in search of employment. This proletarianization of the workforce leads to a race to the bottom as more and more people compete for limited industrial employment.

WHAT CAN PEOPLE DO? As corporations win new legal protections to ease the flow of goods, services and money across international borders, working people have less democracy, less control of their lives and lower standards of living. Join a campaign for globalization from below through the international campaign against Plan Puebla Panama. A US-based coalition to oppose PPP and support community-based development in the American Isthmus is in the process of formation. In close consultation with sister organizations in the Isthmus, the coalition is developing action and education strategies. For more information, contact: Mexico Solidarity Network, e-mail: [email protected] or phone: 773-583-7728